Bloodmages are the mad scientists of the magic-using world: essentially the Sorcerer gone a little bit rotten. Not rotten enough to be considered un-heroic, but still not the sort of person you'd want to meet in a shadowy alchemy lab. The magic that has fused with their bodies typically gets put to slightly more horrific uses than expected, at great cost to themselves as well as their foes.

Races

Gnome

The Bloodmage loves mana potions, making the Gnome a natural choice. However, you will need to improve your maximum mana somehow to get the most out of them.

Elf

The Elf's racial ability can be used to compensate for the Bloodmage's starting mana penalty, making your mana potions extremely powerful. You will want to obtain as many mana potions as you can, such as with a Keg of Mana.

Dwarf

Dwarf is the obvious choice if you want to maximise your health pool.

Human

Humans naturally make strong combat-oriented characters, making this a good fit for the brawler approach.

Strategy

The Bloodmage is an odd class, totally centered around his Sanguine class feature. Because this is his raison d'etre, your entire strategy will revolve around maximizing the gain from this ability. There are two opposite approaches to playing the Bloodmage:

The first is to use Sanguine to fuel BLUDTUPOWA and also boosting your max mana so that mana potions become powerful, allowing an enormous number of spells to be cast without allowing monsters to regenerate. In this approach, you can largely neglect attack damage.

The second is to play a brawler character, using Sanguine to obtain additional staying power in combat, with mana used mostly to power HALPMEH and other glyphs that assist in combat. With this approach, you will hardly ever cast BLUDTUPOWA, but it can still be treated as a free 100 CP. Combined with a good physical attack and some resistances, the Bloodmage can become a very dangerous warrior.

In either case, anything that improves your maximum health is a good investment. Because Sanguine restores a percentage of your maximum health, the amount it restores will increase accordingly. Characters with expanded health pools will also benefit from items such as the Fire Heart.

Mana potions can also be an important resource for the Bloodmage thanks to the Power-Hungry trait. If possible, you should try to use all your mana potions before drinking too many blood pools, as each mana potion you drink will permanently improve your Sanguine ability.

The bloodmage combines well with Dracul, who will shower him with piety for drinking his blood pools, can upgrade his Sanguine ability, and offers the useful Blood Shield boon to boost resistances. Jehora Jeheyu is also a good choice thanks to his health- and mana-boosting boons. Mystera Annur can work well with the BLUDTUPOWA extreme spellcaster approach. Avoid Glowing Guardian, as he hates every aspect of the Bloodmage.

Because the Bloodmage is so totally dependent on blood pools, you should focus on conserving them as much as possible. You must absolutely not get separated from them. On scenarios such as Naga City where there is a point of no return, this makes the Bloodmage a significantly weaker class.